Prehistoric Archaeology of Bihar (An Old And Rare Book)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Regional Archaeology has never been emphasized in India. This was probably because the regional studies done in the sixties and seventies were all under the leadership of Prof. Sankalia who had been incorporating the major finds of all regions within a format of Chrono-cultural arrangement for the whole country. The Allahabad group brought out some very significant regional studies during this period. But these studies also remained basically descriptive and could not emancipate into developing the specific characters of habitat and economy within this zone.

India is a vast country and carries a very large variety of distinct and diverse eco-zones. It is because of this reason alone that we badly require a developing regional archaeology in this country. Dr. Basudev Narayan is known to me for last few years and I had encouraged him to work for developing a Regional Archaeology of Bihar all these years. Now he has finally finished the work and even for doing so he has been regularly consulting me and sending me chapters. Bihar constitutes two distinct eco-zones and each one of these have very different adaptational imperatives working. A book on prehistory of this state, as such, has to adequately differentiate these eco-zones in terms of habitat and economy of the people. For instance, the Neolithic settlers of Chirand would have to be viewed quite differently if one were asked to compare them with the Kuchai settlement (although situated in Orissa, but not very different from Singbhum lateritic zone in ecological features and also barely 150 km. South of Bihar).

Dr. Narayan has put in enormous amount of effort and tries to bring out all possible information from this area specifically aimed towards developing a complete cultural perspective. I am quite certain his efforts will be emulated by others of this generation working in prehistory.

I welcome this publication and recommend this to the younger generation.

The present work entitled Prehistoric Archaeology of Bihar attempts to provide a comprehensive survey of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic industries of the region taking into account the known evidences relating to the environmental or past climatic conditions in which early man lived and produced tools and implements of different prehistoric industries. In a survey of this type covering so to say the entire gamut of prehistoric finds ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic phases, one has to base oneself, to begin with, on the exploration and excavation work done earlier. But in doing so, care has been taken to review the material critically and present them in an order so that they may form part of a connected account of prehistoric industries in this region. In addition to the summarised account of earlier and recent investigators, I have also incorporated in this work the results of my own field survey in the Rajgir-Jethian valley as well as those carried out in collaboration with Dr. R.C.P. Singh and Dr. M.M. Singh in different parts of the districts of Monghyr, Santhal Parganas and Ranchi. The areas surveyed include the hilly belt of Bhimbandh and Jamalpur (Monghyr district), nearly the whole of Santhal Parganas region and the Gumla region of the Ranchi district. Interestingly enough, survey work in these areas had brought to light an interesting collection of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic tools as well as some Neolithic tools and implements. One season of excavation work was also conducted by me in collaboration with Sri A.K. Singh at the Neolithic site of Chirand with a view to checking the results of previous excavation as well as the results of our own work at the site for presenting an integrated account of the Chirand Neolithic.